1. Winter and other drivers are incredibly stupid. I came in late for work. First the locks on my doors were frozen, and then I discovered that the doors were frozen shut. Not cool. Not a big deal. It's just part of living in Wisconsin. So is driving on a two-lane road behind some idiot from Florida in a Yugo who thinks that snow on the ground means a maximum speed on 8 mph, despite the speed limit of 55, as cars zoom by in the opposite direction affording me no opportunity to pass, while a line of drivers behind me who can't see the Yugo blare their horns and make the International Symbol of Discontent causing me to write run-on sentences in my livejournal.

B. Merchants and their banks are incredibly stupid.

Us: We need a copy of the receipt for this transaction to prove to the cardholder that they made it.

Them: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get it to you real soon now.

Us: We really need a copy of the receipt for this transaction to prove to the cardholder that they made it.

Them: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get it to you real real soon now.

Us: Per Mastercard regulations, we will be debiting your account and crediting the transaction back to the cardholder because you did not send us the sales draft we requested.

Them: You never asked us for the sales draft!

Us: Yes we did. Here are the faxes you sent us claiming that the draft would be here "real soon now."

Them: Um, we didn't send those. Somebody must have intercepted our fax, forged replies on letterhead identical to ours, signed our purchasing manager's name to them, and faxed them back to you. Yep. That's almost certainly what happened. I'd stake something that isn't mine on it.

27. The things I do are incredibly stupid. So this morning I was looking at the comments posted to my friends' livejournals, and I saw a comment posted by somebody I recognized, but it took me a minute to figure out where I knew her from: She works at a store I frequent. Well, okay, I don't frequent it, but I spend too much money there, and having been payed on Friday, my plan for today was to go on my lunchbreak and see what of interest I could find. It didn't actually occur to me to go looking for her, or to try to strike up a conversation, and then, as I was browsing, I went down the wrong aisle and there she was! It was startling. I couldn't exactly say what posessed me to do so, but I think I blurted out "Hey, I know you!" Of course, she was pretty taken aback, probably moreso when I mentioned livejournal. The whole conversation ended pretty abruptly at that point, and I continued down the wrong aisle in a totally futile attempt to look nonchalant. I was too uncomfortable to go down the right aisle. I'm just going to pretend it didn't happen, I think. I don't know this person, and I'm not gonna check out her journal any more than I did this morning to avoid the risk of wanting to post comments. Bah. Ten bucks says that next time I go in there, her coworkers are going to whisper about me being "the guy who's stalking Lindsay." I don't know for a fact that her name is Lindsay, but I've made a fool of myself in front of an inordinate number of Lindsays, so this is an educated guess.